Phillip Medhurst

A Pilgrimage to Truth

Category: Christianity

The Empty Tomb

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From “Picture Stories from the Bible”, published in book form by M. C. Gaines in 1943. Text by Montgomery Mulford (an erstwhile writer of articles for church magazines) and artwork by Don Cameron.

Maxwell Charles Gaines was one of the pioneers of the comic book form. He may have been the original designer of the stapled comic book, and he was the first to sell comic books, since before that they had only been promotional give-aways. In 1944, Gaines began a “Educational Comics” (EC) which aimed to reproduce classics in picture format. The “Picture Stories from the Bible” volumes were based on previous individual weeklies. Gaines had them distributed in public schools throughout the U. S. in the 1940’s. The two volumes were a huge hit. Gaines died in 1947. The Old Testament and New Testament collections were both re-published by Scarf Press in 1979 and 1980 respectively, and an Old Testament edition was re-published by Bloch (serving the Jewish community) in 1991.

This file was created by Phillip Medhurst from a copy of the original books in the collection of Oliver Medhurst of Redditch.

Phillip Medhurst

Galahad

 

Behind the grimy concrete and

Glaucoma’d glass old Pelles groans.

He feels the stain grow wider from

His thigh, and looks for meaning in

The ceiling cracks.

 

Mordrain, spastic tetraplegic,

Turns towards the upraised Host. (His

Head is all that moves.) The priests some

Formulaic salve dispense from

Tarnished pyx.

 

Elsewhere a youth is kneeling at

A stream, and catches silver to

His downy lips. By this refreshed,

He cycles on again to do

Sick-visiting.

 

 

Francis of Assisi

 

My verdict is as follows (mark it well):

Francesco Bernadone is a fool.

He thinks that he can strip our Mother Church,

And rob her of her dowry held in store.

 

If she is to be wed to high-born men,

We should not treat her grossly as a whore

Who gives her favours freely, from the heart,

To all who beat a path up to her door.

 

 

Cathedrals are not built with lepers’ hands,

Or chantries by mere gutter-deaths endowed.

Bejewelled shrines must dazzle tear-filled eyes,

Not rustic dolls laid out on heaps of straw.

 

Francesco and his half-crazed crew may stalk

Unto their hearts’ content this countryside,

But they shall not invade our frescoed walls,

Or stigmatise the icons we adore.

 

We rest secure beneath our mosaiced domes.

The chant of priest, the tinkle of the coin,

Ensures the soul’s release, the sinner’s balm,

While gospel-truth is safe beneath the floor.

 

Jonah

 

In the fish’s belly, I,

Crowned with slimy weed,

Feel odds and ends of recollects

Slide past, a monster’s brunch;

But no repast for me,

The bearer of bad luck.

 

Staring, dreading nought,

Disembodied eyes

And scales and teeth and bones

Swirl round and on and down

Through retribution’s maw,

To God knows what.

 

The storm outside abates.

His anger; is it spent? –

Repentance rolls perhaps from port

Unto metropolis.

The giant tail, now purposeful,

Flicks the new-stilled waves.

 

The sway of swerve round roots

Of mountains, through drowned valleys

Stops. Now patient, I await

A resurrecting belch,

Hoping that those Ninevites

Get just what they deserve.

 

 

Martyrdom

 

The rich reduced, the poor endowed,

The weak are raised to thrones of power.

The good Lord rules while kings are cowed;

He undermines the tyrant’s tower.

 

 

In tatters, stripped, from field walled,

God calls us to his banquet spread.

Let super-substantial manna fall,

This day our daily-given bread.

 

 

The full are starved, the empty fed,

The fertile pine, the barren bear.

He flattens fields, gives landless bread;

Both weal and woe our God can share.

 

I am his wheat, ground in a mill

By tooth of beast to make fine leaven;

I shall rise up to do His will,

As done this very hour in heaven.

 

 

Later Pieta (Michelangelo)

 

I bear this weight with dignity,

For meaning is in symmetry –

Or so it seemed that way, when I

Could easily command plasticity.

 

I chiselled him – the crucified –

As handsome then: a slumbering lord,

And Mary still resplendent in

Her prime, and poised, and aureoled

 

In draperies. But now he droops

As heavy as a corpse will be,

And she, wrapped up against the cold,

Just clutches at this clod, her son.

 

I had to come in person and

Join in this undertaking, but

I’m growing old, and now don’t know

Where beauty is. And that’s the truth.

 

 

Teresa of Avila

 

A cherub pressed me to my knees:

He held a flaming spear.

He struck again, and then again:

As much as I could bear.

I soon abandoned all desire

For this sweet pain to cease.

No other bliss compares to this

Felicitous disease.

I greet this torment willingly.

I fondly hug the wound.

Love’s quarry, breathless, flees no more,

For she is run to ground.

 

 

 

Noel

 

Incandescent lamp-posts glow

Brightly through the shower of snow.

The tombstones, wet,

Reflect a flash

Of fake resuscitation.

The pale scene vaunts

Beauty unmarred,

Unstained by obscene flesh.

How perfect and pristine! –

Unspoilt by bestial notions

Of God dropped in the hay,

And livestock’s smoky breath

Set to thaw Death.

 

Noli Me Tangere (to Mary Magdalene)

 

To me it seemed a comforting idea,

Too welcome, too sublime to be untrue

That love and meaning could thus rendez-vous:

Be gazed upon, and touched.

 

But doubts persist that I imagined Him.

When He did not appear I then assumed

A love that God in fact was loath to show

Unto The Crucified.

 

Yet can there be conclusion to my grief

If I can never cling to one who walks

Within the graveyard of my dreams, with voice

Unsilenced by his pain?

 

And does my vision promise me too much?

Does Christ Himself recoil from ill-placed trust,

Compelled to say, “Noli me tangere” –

That flesh can never tarry.

 

 

 

Exodus

 

O Christ, thy crown is broke in two pieces:

Give half to me, O give half to me.

O Christ thy cloak is riven in pieces:

Give some to me, O give some to me.

 

And I will mould a smaller crown,

And patch a cloak for me.

And I shall go down, down,

Down unto the sea.

And the sea shall part for me.